Guide · ChatGPT ads
ChatGPT lets advertisers upload a custom audience: only profiles matching your email addresses or phone numbers see your ad. This guide walks you through the process step by step — from selection in Drimble Business to a live campaign — including the 25,000-contact threshold and the exclusion of the European Economic Area.
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The two hard requirements
A custom audience may only be used for targeting once it reaches at least 25,000 matched ChatGPT users; OpenAI recommends 100,000 or more. Rows in your file are not matches: upload well above the threshold. Below it, a list can only be used to exclude people.
Custom audiences currently do not work for campaigns targeting the European Economic Area and Switzerland. They do work for the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom and Australia. You reach European companies through the other channels in this guide.
OpenAI requires your audience to consist of your own, lawfully obtained customer or lead data. Purchased or broker-sourced lists are not allowed. Drimble helps you build that first-party list — not bypass the rule.
Step by step
Select companies on the characteristics that define your ideal customer: country and region, sector, company size, growth signals and technical attributes such as the CMS or marketing automation platform a company uses. You know exactly how large your target market is before spending a euro on media.
Export the selected companies including postal address, phone number and — where available — business email addresses and WhatsApp. This export is your working file for building your own first-party list.
Approach your selection via direct mail, phone, email or WhatsApp with an offer that invites a response: a download, demo or newsletter. Everyone who signs up lawfully joins your own database — exactly the data ChatGPT accepts.
Upload the email addresses or phone numbers from your own database to the ChatGPT ads manager. Only profiles registered with those details enter your audience. Check that you clear 25,000 matches; if not, grow your first-party database first.
Target your ChatGPT campaign at markets where custom audiences are permitted, such as the US, Canada, the UK and Australia. For the EEA and Switzerland, activate the same Drimble selection via mail, phone, email and WhatsApp — often just as effective there.
Worked example
Say you want to reach dental practices. In Drimble Business you select 40,000 practices in your target countries and build a first-party database of 30,000 sign-ups. Upload those, and at a 70% match rate ChatGPT matches about 21,000 — just under the threshold, so the list can only exclude, not target. With 45,000 first-party contacts the same match rate puts you above 30,000 matches and you can advertise. The lesson: your first-party database must be well above 25,000.
A list of your own email addresses or phone numbers that you upload to the ads platform. Only ChatGPT profiles registered with those details will see your ad.
ChatGPT requires at least 25,000 matched users before a custom audience may be used for targeting, and recommends 100,000 or more. Below that threshold a list may only be used to exclude people from your campaign.
Not with custom audiences: they currently do not work for campaigns targeting the European Economic Area and Switzerland. For those markets, use the same Drimble selection via direct mail, phone, email and WhatsApp.
No. OpenAI only accepts first-party data: details people have shared with you themselves and lawfully. Use your Drimble selection to build such a database through your own campaigns.
Drimble defines and quantifies your target market — by sector, region, size and technical attributes — and provides the contact routes (mail, phone, email, WhatsApp) with which you build the first-party list ChatGPT does accept.
We will calculate the size of your target market for free and outline the route to a permitted first-party list.
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